Two villages in one
There is the Bapchild on the A2, with the Grade I church of St Lawrence and houses that have been there for generations. Then there is the Bapchild that has grown up in the last few years at Spring Acres, the estate built on the old Stones Farm land off Fox Hill. When the 2021 Census was taken, around nine in ten homes in the parish were detached or semi-detached and 84% heated with mains gas alone. The new estates have only added to both.
New-build boilers and your warranty
A boiler in a new house usually comes with a long manufacturer warranty, often longer than people realise. The catch is in the small print: for most makes it only holds if the boiler is serviced every year by a registered engineer and the service is recorded. Miss a year and a claim can be turned down.
So if you moved into Spring Acres or one of the other new streets and nobody has touched the boiler since, it's worth booking a service now. We do the service and fill in the record, and if a fault turns out to be the builder's to fix, we'll say so.
Older houses in the village
The older houses along the A2 and towards Tonge are a different job. Many have had two or three boilers in their lifetime, and the pipework shows it. When we replace a boiler here we look at the whole system: sludge in the radiators, a pump that's working too hard, a cylinder that's past it. A new boiler on a dirty system won't last as long as it should.
Water and the conservation area next door
The old village gets its water from South East Water, which rates it hard at about 292 mg/l. Tonge, just to the north, is a conservation area with the Grade I church of St Giles. In a conservation area a flue facing the road needs planning permission, so we route it to the side or back where we can.
A new country park
Swale Borough Council took ownership of Stones Farm Country Park in February 2026, as part of the Spring Acres deal. It has a chalk stream, a new orchard and wet woodland, and it's worth a look if you haven't been.